Since early December, Médecins Sans Frontières/Doctors Without Borders (MSF) has provided medical care to over 1,000 patients wounded by violence in and around Bangui airport, where approximately 100,000 displaced people have taken refuge from a wave of fighting that has spread across the country. Carrying out medical activities at the camp is a big challenge due to heavy fighting regularly taking place close to where MSF is working.
Photos by Wlliam Daniels
Photostory: Inside an airport hospital
MSF medical staff are treating a man in Mpoko airport camp who was hit by an arrow. The fighters are often using homemade weapons like clubs with spikes, axes, and machetes. Due to lack of protection, the displaced people at the airport camp are too scared to return home, fearful of getting attacked.
Many people in Bangui have witnessed extreme violence, lost family and friends, and are traumatised as a result of the abuses committed by the two main armed groups – the ex-Seleka and the opposing anti-Balaka.
MSF staff at the Mpoko airport camp take cover on the ground as they hear shooting outside. Stray bullets from fighting in surrounding neighborhoods sometimes enter the hospital. MSF has had to operate with only a reduced team at the airport several times due to heavy fighting taking place close to the clinic.
MSF staff at Mpoko camp are attending to the wounded man, who is about to be referred for emergency surgery at the Hopital Communautaire in another part of town, where another MSF team is working.
